Hybrid's - to plug or not to plug

[Dashnine]

otolith said:

If you buy the plug-in and she doesn't take to plugging it in, it will still work as a simple hybrid. Though she might like the reduced petrol costs if she can be bothered!

Agreed, if she does plug it in she'll see the benefit, then the next step is the EV which she'll be used to having to plug-in.

For my twopennyworth I have a Cupra Formentor PHEV, and tend to use it in EV or Petrol modes (as the battery gets used up pretty quickly - 70 or 80 miles, or if saving the battery for use in towns, etc.). It does about 50mpg in hybrid mode, or about 40mpg down the motorway cruising at 75-80mph).

The overall, headline figures are just a consequence of how often you run only in EV mode. Mine is 60mpg as I commute 12 miles each way twice a week with low rate or free (at work) charging, others don't use the ICE for months subsequently getting huge mpg figures.

I have never used public charging, and don't intend to - when the batterys depleted it just uses the ICE and regenerates / deploys the battery when it can.

As a Cupra when it's on the turbo and using the battery for performance it's pretty quick too (other PHEVs may do this too, e.g. VW group cars with the same PHEV hardware, the other brands I test drove didn't).

[GetCarter]

Phil. said:

Please remind me what PHEV’s do better than mild hybrids or EV’s?

I can answer that. First up, it's horses for courses, a PHEV works for me, but I understand that I'm probably in an unusual situation.

I do about 25 miles a day, every day. I do this on battery power, so don't use any petrol. My nearest fuel pump is a 36 mile round trip, and in the past I've had to do that trip every two weeks or so, now I only have to do that about once a year (saving 50+ hours driving and 1800+ miles of petrol p.a.).

I also occasionally have to do 800+ mile round trips, and having the petrol engine means I don't have to faff with recharging.

Lastly, I get 398bhp/640Nm when I use both ICE and battery at the same time. (RR P400e).

Just ordered another one!

[raspy]

blank said:

40mpg on petrol is of course cheaper than 40mpg on diesel (in the UK at least) and even cheaper than a full EV doing public charging.

The difference is if most use for the PHEV is short journeys, school runs, commutes etc then it can run purely on electric, which if using home charging is maybe 20% of the cost of 40mpg.


It's almost like different powertrain options suit different people.

We have a PHEV and an EV. A diesel would be terrible for us due to our usage profile (would almost certainly kill the DPF). Diesel is however the best option for some people.

40mpg on petrol would be "more" expensive than an EV using public charging like a Tesla supercharger, where it's 51 pence per kwh at a supercharger in London.

That's assuming petrol is £1.40 a litre and the EV does 3.5 miles per kwh.

You would pay £19.10 on a 120 mile trip with that petrol car and £17.50 on a 120 mile trip with that EV.

[Ankh87]

Her daily use is just within the village and maybe the odd 40mph road. There is times when she'll do a few miles but overall it's the school run and similar things.

So a plug-in would be perfect as if she needs to range then it's there.

[clockworks]

I probably posted this before, but my XC40 PHEV has now done 1350 miles since I last put any petrol in the 50 litre tank. Still showing 60 miles of petrol range.

Add in the electric (Octopus Go, 9p), it's costing me about 6.5p a mile average - the equivalent of 100mpg. On short journeys, it's costing just over 3p a mile.

[Alickadoo]

Ankh87 said:

Her daily use is just within the village and maybe the odd 40mph road. There is times when she'll do a few miles but overall it's the school run and similar things.

So a plug-in would be perfect as if she needs to range then it's there.

But she doesn't want one - does she?

If you know what's good for you, you will get her what she wants. a self-charging hybrid - or whatever it's called this week.

[blank]

raspy said:

blank said:

40mpg on petrol is of course cheaper than 40mpg on diesel (in the UK at least) and even cheaper than a full EV doing public charging.

The difference is if most use for the PHEV is short journeys, school runs, commutes etc then it can run purely on electric, which if using home charging is maybe 20% of the cost of 40mpg.


It's almost like different powertrain options suit different people.

We have a PHEV and an EV. A diesel would be terrible for us due to our usage profile (would almost certainly kill the DPF). Diesel is however the best option for some people.

40mpg on petrol would be "more" expensive than an EV using public charging like a Tesla supercharger, where it's 51 pence per kwh at a supercharger in London.

That's assuming petrol is £1.40 a litre and the EV does 3.5 miles per kwh.

You would pay £19.10 on a 120 mile trip with that petrol car and £17.50 on a 120 mile trip with that EV.

If you choose an unusually cheap public charger then yes, however you could also choose to use 45mpg which would shift the balance again.

The main point being that public EV charging is very expensive!

[TheDeuce]

clockworks said:

I probably posted this before, but my XC40 PHEV has now done 1350 miles since I last put any petrol in the 50 litre tank. Still showing 60 miles of petrol range.

Add in the electric (Octopus Go, 9p), it's costing me about 6.5p a mile average - the equivalent of 100mpg. On short journeys, it's costing just over 3p a mile.

Are PHEVs quite inefficient then? A home charge of our i4 is 250 real world miles for £7, 2.8ppm

I would have thought the PHEV would do at least as well on the basis the combined weight of the battery + ICE is less than the hefty battery pack of a BEV.

[otolith]

TheDeuce said:

I would have thought the PHEV would do at least as well on the basis the combined weight of the battery + ICE is less than the hefty battery pack of a BEV.

I would expect a car which cannot make the efficiency enhancements an EV can (particularly around drag reduction) because it still has to run an ICE to be less efficient. Weight is much less impactful to efficiency in cars which have regenerative braking.

[otolith]

There we go;

[Evanivitch]

otolith said:

TheDeuce said:

I would have thought the PHEV would do at least as well on the basis the combined weight of the battery + ICE is less than the hefty battery pack of a BEV.

I would expect a car which cannot make the efficiency enhancements an EV can (particularly around drag reduction) because it still has to run an ICE to be less efficient. Weight is much less impactful to efficiency in cars which have regenerative braking.

Yeah it's not the weight it's the cooling issues. See something which is available in HEV/PHEV/BEV (Niro, Ioniq) to see how that is different across all 3 models.

[RizzoTheRat]

otolith said:

There we go;

I'd have thought that was more a comparison of SUV vs Coupe, but it appears the BMW IX is 0.25-0.26 which impressive considering it's barn door of a front end. Although I think that's the new XC40 recharge which is a BEV not a hybrid

[clockworks]

TheDeuce said:

clockworks said:

I probably posted this before, but my XC40 PHEV has now done 1350 miles since I last put any petrol in the 50 litre tank. Still showing 60 miles of petrol range.

Add in the electric (Octopus Go, 9p), it's costing me about 6.5p a mile average - the equivalent of 100mpg. On short journeys, it's costing just over 3p a mile.

Are PHEVs quite inefficient then? A home charge of our i4 is 250 real world miles for £7, 2.8ppm

I would have thought the PHEV would do at least as well on the basis the combined weight of the battery + ICE is less than the hefty battery pack of a BEV.

Yes, not as efficient as many pure EVs.

Some of that will be down to the less than optimal drag of an adapted ICE platform, and some down to transmission losses. In electric mode, the motor drives the front wheels through the normal auto gearbox, although it only uses two of the gears.
I think some models have the ICE driving the front wheels, while the electric motor drives the rears. Mine does everything through the front wheels.

Usable battery capacity is about 8.5 kwh from "zero", OBC says 24 miles. The most I've measured going back in is 8.9kwh.
In practice, it'll do close to 30 miles at low speeds in the summer.
Worst I've had in the winter is 21 miles at higher speeds.

So, 2.5 to 3.4 miles per kwh. Not bad, but not class-leading. Far cheaper than petrol!

[otolith]

RizzoTheRat said:

I'd have thought that was more a comparison of SUV vs Coupe, but it appears the BMW IX is 0.25-0.26 which impressive considering it's barn door of a front end. Although I think that's the new XC40 recharge which is a BEV not a hybrid

Hybrid version is likely worse, because the EV version should have the cooling blanked off, but it's a shared ICE/PHEV/EV platform, which tends to be suboptimal for EV.

[Evanivitch]

Where PHEV do improve is cold weather performance. So if I was going outside of my EV range I'd use the ICE for a period of time nesr the start and then use the thermal mass of the engine for cabin heating and not the electric heater.

[yellowbentines]

plfrench said:

Phil. said:

If I understand correctly the only thing PHEV’s do better than a mild-hybrid or EV is to shift the tailpipe emissions somewhere else whilst on a short journey, because they produce tailpipe emissions on longer journeys?

In order to achieve this phenomenon PHEV’s lug massive batteries around all of the time making them less efficient than mild-hybrids and producing more tailpipe emissions than an EV.

As others have highlighted PHEV’s really only make financial sense if they are owned as a company car, and that’s only because of the current political taxation system which will change at some point.

As for my tractor, you might want to drive one because I can guarantee it’s engine is far quieter than your 4 pot Mazda petrol is when dragging your 2 tonne battery laden PHEV away from the peage

Edited to add that I managed over 50mpg on one part of a tour of Scotland last year and as I said 40mpg+ is normal on longer journeys for my tractor.

Edited by Phil. on Monday 24th June 09:45

That's a fair old elevation drop from Glencoe (3635ft) to Fort William (692 ft). What was the return journey consumption?

Unless he was off-roading at the top of a Munro, the elevation drop wasn't from 3635ft!

There won't be much elevation change between the A82 at Glencoe and Fort William - not enough to significantly influence mpg anyway.

[Phil.]

yellowbentines said:

plfrench said:

Phil. said:

If I understand correctly the only thing PHEV’s do better than a mild-hybrid or EV is to shift the tailpipe emissions somewhere else whilst on a short journey, because they produce tailpipe emissions on longer journeys?

In order to achieve this phenomenon PHEV’s lug massive batteries around all of the time making them less efficient than mild-hybrids and producing more tailpipe emissions than an EV.

As others have highlighted PHEV’s really only make financial sense if they are owned as a company car, and that’s only because of the current political taxation system which will change at some point.

As for my tractor, you might want to drive one because I can guarantee it’s engine is far quieter than your 4 pot Mazda petrol is when dragging your 2 tonne battery laden PHEV away from the peage

Edited to add that I managed over 50mpg on one part of a tour of Scotland last year and as I said 40mpg+ is normal on longer journeys for my tractor.

Edited by Phil. on Monday 24th June 09:45

That's a fair old elevation drop from Glencoe (3635ft) to Fort William (692 ft). What was the return journey consumption?

Unless he was off-roading at the top of a Munro, the elevation drop wasn't from 3635ft!

There won't be much elevation change between the A82 at Glencoe and Fort William - not enough to significantly influence mpg anyway.

Thanks for the clarification. People don’t seem to believe that a mild-hybrid diesel FFRR can average 40mpg+. If in doubt check out the FFRR forum where there are plenty of real world examples

[MrTrilby]

Phil. said:

Thanks for the clarification. People don’t seem to believe that a mild-hybrid diesel FFRR can average 40mpg+. If in doubt check out the FFRR forum where there are plenty of real world examples

Comparing a mild hybrid diesel with a PHEV petrol doesn’t make much sense if you’re trying to gauge whether the PHEV bits provide any benefit on longer journeys. It makes more sense to compare two cars that have the same engine so any difference is purely down to the mild hybrid versus PHEV.

The closest comparison I can think of is the Volvo XC60 or XC90 B5 mild hybrid compared with the T6 PHEV. They share largely the same 2 litre turbo petrol engine, and the PHEV has a clear economy benefit on long journeys compared with the B5 mild hybrid.

And that ignores the fact that the PHEV is a far more pleasant car to drive (the PHEV bits fill in torque during gear changes so they are utterly seamless, and eliminate the off boost lethargy you get with turbocharged engines).

[plfrench]

RizzoTheRat said:

I'd have thought that was more a comparison of SUV vs Coupe, but it appears the BMW IX is 0.25-0.26 which impressive considering it's barn door of a front end. Although I think that's the new XC40 recharge which is a BEV not a hybrid

That’s where frontal area, A, comes into calculating aerodynamic drag CdA. It’s a fundamental point to consider and why narrower, lower vehicles will be better for a given coefficient of drag, Cd.

[paralla]

I’m going to try one more time…..

This is my husbands 2023 Toyota CH-R GR Sport 2.0L. It has a 2.0L petrol engine, a 0.9kWh battery, it’s a hybrid that you don’t plug in. It’s done 1000 miles. It does 60mpg just by putting petrol in it.

It has 180bhp, does 0-60mph in 7.8 seconds, weighs 1,485 kg and the e-CVT means it’s very smooth and quiet, it’s actually pretty nice to drive. It can run for short periods on just the battery but the majority of the time its engine is running.



This is a loaner 2024 Toyota CH-R Excel 2.0L PHEV that we had for two weeks before the red one arrived. It was brand new and we put 1600 miles on it.

It has the same 2.0L petrol engine as the red one, it has a 13.8kWh battery, it’s a hybrid that you plug in. It has 232bhp, does 0-60mph in 7.4 seconds, weighs 1650kg and the e-CVT means it’s very smooth and quiet, it’s also actually pretty nice to drive. It can run for 41 miles on just the battery and use no fuel at all. After the battery is flat it does 65mpg.



Because it has a bigger battery it also has a bigger electric motor, this allows it to accelerate much harder on just the motor/battery than the red one before the petrol engine kicks in, even when the battery is indicating 0% charge. It always saves a bit of battery for this.

The bigger motor and battery allow it to regenerate and store more power when decelerating or going downhill.

If you plug the PHEV in to charge it uses less fuel, is cheaper to run, is faster, is more refined and generally nicer to drive.

If you don’t plug the PHEV in it’s still faster and more refined than the hybrid but costs the same in petrol as the hybrid.

The PHEV cost £12,000 more than the red hybrid.

We bought the red hybrid instead of the white PHEV because it was £12,000 cheaper and the safety systems and driver aids in the white one were infuriating, in the red one they either stay off once turned off or are much easier to turn off using a physical button rather than a deep dive into the menu system at the beginning of every drive.

If you think it will get plugged in a PHEV makes sense if you can stomach the higher up front cost but you need to keep it a long time before you will recover the higher purchase price. We only keep cars for as long as the warranty so the higher purchase price of the PHEV wasn’t justified.